Tom Faranda's Folly

Why hiking beats biking

Kerry breaks leg in bike crash; ends overseas trip early

Kerry decided to seek treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital because the fracture is near the site of his earlier hip surgery, Kirby said.

Maureen Dowd - not jazzed over Hillary C.

But like the Hollywood people she interviewing, at the end of the day I'm sure she'll support her. It's the social issues, you know.

I recently interviewed several dozen Hollywood players, mostly on background because of fears about the famed Clinton vindictive streak.

They aren’t over the moon about Barack Obama anymore, and even feel burned. He was like a razzle-dazzle trailer that turned out to be a disappointing movie with mediocre box office.

You hear plenty of complaints about the president’s mingy care and feeding of donors.

“It’s not unheard-of to think that liking people is part of the job,” one political consultant to the stars said tartly.

Hollywood is mostly united behind Hillary, with a few Bernie outliers and Elizabeth dreamers. But it’s a forced march.

“There’s this feeling like, ‘Oh, damn! Now we’re all going to have to show up to Jeffrey’s event,’ ” said one studio big shot.

Drinking wine at his glamorous house, an Obama bundler who is trying to work up some Hillary enthusiasm, agreed: “‘Jeffrey Katzenberg is calling’ is a call that you avoid in a way that you couldn’t before.”

Because the Clintons have been in politics for decades, there is a throng at the teat, making donors, bundlers and retainers fret that the rewards and appointments will be spread thin.

There's more if you hit the link, including an amusing quote from Bill Maher at the end.

Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez on Romero Beatification

I posted about Archbishop Romero's beatification, which was May 23rd, here Beatification: "In search of Romero and his theology" and here Archbishop Romero Beatification tomorrow .

 

Daily exercise in "old age"

The article references people in their 70's and 80's. I'm not there yet.

“A mortality reduction of 40% was associated with a moderate use of time (30 minutes, six days a week) irrespective of whether the activity was light or vigorous,” their study said.

Among those who exercised vigorously – defined as hard training several times a week – the lifespan was as much as five years longer than among those who were sedentary.

 

"Moore's Law": still describes technology advances

In plains English it holds that computing power will double every two years. It's been an accurate prediction since 1965.

Short article from Scientific American -

Moore's Law Keeps Going, Defying Expectations It’s a mystery why Gordon Moore’s “law,” which forecasts processor power will double every two years, still holds true a half century later.

Of course, Moore’s law is not really a law like those describing gravity or the conservation of energy. It is a prediction that the number of transistors (a computer’s electrical switches used to represent 0s and 1s) that can fit on a silicon chip will double every two years as technology advances. This leads to incredibly fast growth in computing power without a concomitant expense and has led to laptops and pocket-size gadgets with enormous processing ability at fairly low prices. Advances under Moore’s law have also enabled smartphone verbal search technologies such as Siri—it takes enormous computing power to analyze spoken words, turn them into digital representations of sound and then interpret them to give a spoken answer in a matter of seconds.

Another way to think about Moore’s law is to apply it to a car. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich explained that if a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle had advanced at the pace of Moore’s law over the past 34 years, today “you would be able to go with that car 300,000 miles per hour. You would get two million miles per gallon of gas, and all that for the mere cost of four cents.”

Wow! Some analogy.

Should illegal immigrants vote?

35% of the population and 53% of Democrats say yes.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that one-out-of-three Likely U.S. Voters (35%) now believes that illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote if they can prove they live in this country and pay taxes. Sixty percent (60%) disagree, while five percent (5%) are undecided.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of Democrats think tax-paying illegal immigrants should have the right to vote. Twenty-one percent (21%) of Republicans and 30% of voters not affiliated with either major political party agree.

 

Rugby: Ireland vs. Barbarians (invitational team)

The Barbarians are a select team, picked from players around the world, always looking to play attacking rugby.

 

Federal Court: NY "Choose Life" license plate "patently offensive"

The woman mentioned below, Elizabeth Rex, is a friend of ours. Money raised by these specialty plates - available in the great majority of states - goes to fund adoption initiatives.

Here's the plate -

A federal appeals court has issued a ruling banning Choose Life license plates in New York state and claimed in its decision that pro-life views are “patently offensive.” The court issued ruling in The Children First Foundation v. Fiala, which rejects a pro-adoption group’s application to sponsor a “Choose Life” specialty plate with the New York Department of Motor Vehicles.

- excerpts -

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco decried the decision.

“Pro-adoption organizations should have the same speech rights as any other organization. While the district court affirmed this basic freedom, the circuit court denied free speech in favor of government censorship. The state doesn’t have the authority to target The Children First Foundation specialty plates for censorship based on its life-affirming viewpoint. The state has wrongly gotten away with speech discrimination against our client for more than 10 years. We will review our legal options.”

>>>>>>>>>

The battle to allow motorists to purchase Choose Life license plates has been going on in the Empire State for years.

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of The Children First Foundation in 2004 against state officials who denied its attempt to allow motorists to purchase Choose Life license plates. The New York Department of Motor Vehicles rejected CFF’s design in August 2002 — considering it “too political and controversial” to approve. The organization redesigned the plate, adding the group’s web site to it to better explain its purpose, and the DMV rejected it again.

The state dismissed the attempt to create the plate and said it was rejected in order “to avoid any appearance of governmental support for either side in the divisive national abortion debate.”

Saying its free speech rights were denied, Children First filed suit with assistance from Alliance Defense Fund attorneys and, in January 2005, a federal judge ruled it had sufficiently argued its First Amendment rights would be violated.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s second attempt to ban the plates and allowed the lawsuit to move forward. The DMV eventually suspended review of specialty plates — a move that Elizabeth Rex, president of the Children First Foundation, says was done specifically to block the Choose Life plate.

 

Vatican on Ireland same sex marriage vote: "Defeat for Humanity"

Vatican diplomat seen as second only to the pope insists Saturday’s referendum result shows ‘the church must strengthen its commitment to evangelisation’

“I was deeply saddened by the result,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said at a conference in Rome on Tuesday night. “The church must take account of this reality, but in the sense that it must strengthen its commitment to evangelisation. I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity.”

The remarks by the Vatican’s top diplomat, who is seen as second only to the pope in the church’s hierarchy, represent the most damning assessment of the Irish vote by a senior church official to date.

Pataki running for President ... HAHAHAHAHA

And what did he accomplish as Governor of NY? Not much.

All right, Family Health Plus - credit for that. And that's just about it. - And Family Health Plus was eliminated by Obamacare!

Otherwise,  all talk, no action, wimpy Republican, phony Catholic.

He must be nuts to think his campaign will go anywhere.

 

Carly Fiorina - works for me

At the end of March I posted that my preferred person for President is the Ohio Governor, John Kasich. Here's my guy for President - as if anyone cares . Well, he still is, but I more and more like Carly Fiorina. Yesterday Drudge linked to her interview with Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC, which was up on the Breitbart website.

Fiorina, is so articulate, she cuts to the chase, and shares most of my values and principles (and it doesn't hurt that she's a cancer survivor). I hope she is involved in the Republican debates. This morning I did something I've never done before, which is register on a Presidential candidate's website (which I suppose means I'll be getting lots of email and $$$ solicitations from her ...)

Here's a good op-ed about Fiorina - it's only 14 paragraphs and I think captures her pretty well -

In a sit-down interview on Tuesday, Fiorina was impressive even by the standards of Union Leader editorial interviews. Most candidates, seasoned or not, struggle to stay on message. The temptation to stray, to elaborate, to explain is too great. To overcome the impulse, they memorize talking points, after which they sound robotic... then they stray.

Not Fiorina.

Her ability to stay on message without repeating the same worn talking point four times is nothing short of remarkable. She told National Review Online that she learned how to hone a message when a professor at Stanford assigned a book of medieval philosophy every week and required students to condense it into a two-page paper.

Politics is a field dominated by those who excel at communicating, and Fiorina is proving herself a powerful and effective communicator. She does more than turn a nice phrase. (“Nothing makes me angrier than when people’s livelihoods are sacrificed on the altar of ideology.”) She packs more substance into fewer words than anyone else in the 2016 field.

With this ability, Fiorina is selling herself as a competent manager and bold leader. She charmingly calls the administrative apparatus in Washington a “vast, bloated, incompetent bureaucracy.” To fix it, she would implement zero-based budgeting and pay for performance; tackle fraud, waste and abuse; and eliminate jobs of federal employees who retire.

She would “reimagine” the way federal departments work, she said. - See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150528/LOCALVOICES03/150529233#sthash.lRSXnE2M.dpuf

Not Fiorina.

Her ability to stay on message without repeating the same worn talking point four times is nothing short of remarkable. She told National Review Online that she learned how to hone a message when a professor at Stanford assigned a book of medieval philosophy every week and required students to condense it into a two-page paper.

Politics is a field dominated by those who excel at communicating, and Fiorina is proving herself a powerful and effective communicator. She does more than turn a nice phrase. (“Nothing makes me angrier than when people’s livelihoods are sacrificed on the altar of ideology.”) She packs more substance into fewer words than anyone else in the 2016 field.

With this ability, Fiorina is selling herself as a competent manager and bold leader. She charmingly calls the administrative apparatus in Washington a “vast, bloated, incompetent bureaucracy.” To fix it, she would implement zero-based budgeting and pay for performance; tackle fraud, waste and abuse; and eliminate jobs of federal employees who retire.

She would “reimagine” the way federal departments work, she said. - See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150528/LOCALVOICES03/150529233#sthash.lRSXnE2M.dpuf

 

 

Jeanne Robertson - epic raconteur

Another good short vid - for more of my postings of her, just plug in "Jeanne Robertson" in the search box above.

 

Reggie Jackson - five facts

Jean Vanier - great three minute talk

As he's awarded the Templeton Prize. He -  Vanier - is a living saint.

 

Arnold Bringing Back 'Conan the Barbarian'

I can't wait. Yawn.

 

Yankees two games over .500, but in first place!?

The Yanks are very streaky. And either all the teams are mediocre, or all of them are very good. Probably the former.

Regular season standings

This Wednesday 4PM - hike of the month

The Teatown-Kitchawn Trail, with my hiking buddy Jeanne Marie in charge. This looks to be a nice, not too demanding at all, walk. We'll probably do about two thirds of it - John Hand Park to Kitchawan - with cars at both ends.

Teatown-Kitchawan Trail

Croton Memorial Day; Christine Turturro, "Amazing Grace" (Acapella)

Nice turnout - probably 300 people.

Christine is a wonderful talent - she will be at Niagara University next year in a special BFA program.

 

And here are some pictures from the 11AM Memorial Day gathering and the Croton HS band, at the end of the ceremony.

Rabbi Jakes gave a thoughtful closing prayer.

My friend Vinnie Stack, who is a marine veteran.

NIce sentiment -

 HA! The Croton HS band did a great job - they were playing as people left - but no one left until they finished!

 

Memorial Day research on my namesake

I posted this in 2013; thought I'd repeat it.

Memorial Day research on my namesake

More - Popolopen Torne hike earlier this month

Next hike of the month is this Wednesday - a relatively easy one, on the Teatown-Kitchawan Trail.

Here are more pictures from our May 3rd pretty amazing hike on the Popolopen Torne loop and to the Torne summit. Great walk, and the summit with it's memorial cairn is amazing and inspirational. At some point I'm going to go back up and then do a whole posting on the summit and the cairn. And try to further get the word about it out on all the social media. 

Here are the three amigos, Brigid, Judy, and hiking buddy Jeanne Marie.

Much of the walk on the way up was quite pastoral - Brigid took this - you can spot my big rear.

After about three hours  - the last part of the summit had a rope - assist already in place.

 

And the annoyingly very fit Jeanne Marie was the first person to the top!

And close behind -

 

The cairn is a memorial to troops who have been lost mainly in Afghanistan and I believe also in Iraq. I do want to come back and take some extensive pictures - only going to post a few of the ones that I took this time of the cairn.

Unobstructed views, in all directions.

 

And looking southwest -

There are two granite benches at the summit, each inscribed with the name of a West Point man - must have been a bitch very difficult to get them to the summit. They were carried, not helicoptered in ...

MAJ Thomas “TK” Kennedy, killed by a suicide bomb attack: Obituary, Military Times tribute

1LT Daren M. Hidalgo, killed by an IED. He had been injured two weeks earlier by an IED, but refused medical tratment - wanted to stay with his men: News story, Military Times tribute

Sobering. There are many other inscribed rocks, signs, and insignias in the cairn.

Now, getting down the other side of the summit. The hike was a loop - no retracing.

A little hairy. Some sliding on bottoms for the first part. And then it got easier.

Detect a pattern? Jeanne Marie always at the front... You go girl!

The bridge is a prefab one, brought in when the prior bridge was washed away in the 2012 hurricane.

Looking back at the summit - through a fairly long zoom lens.

The bridge had taken us over the Popolopen creek, which we then followed.

And then back to civilization as we head north on 9W, over the Popolopen creek bridge (which has construction going on) to the parking area a few hundred yards north of the Fort Montgomery Historic site. 

 

Finally, Brigid has a funny way of carrying her trekking pole as a swagger stick. Is she a Brevet Major in the British Army?

Great hike. Going to do it again in the next few months.

 

 

 

NY Daily News - changes comin'

Or it could just completely disappear.

The Finkelstein bid seems focused on the future of the 94-year old paper as an online product, sources said. If he gains control, Finkelstein would contemplate selling off the teetering tabloid’s money-making commercial printing presses in Jersey City, NJ.

According to offering documents, Lazard has laid out a scenario whereby the News goes from losing $30 million a year to break-even in three years based on capturing more digital ad dollars.

But James Dolan, CEO of Cablevision, is among the skeptics of such a scenario. Dolan decided against submitting a $1 bid for the paper and its presses because, according to sources, even at that price, he did not think he could make a profit on the News.

Finkelstein’s group joins supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis as the only suitors to submit a bid for the News.

$1? That's what Newsweek sold for, a few years ago.

John Nash, Inspiration for "A Beautiful Mind"

Killed in a car accident on the NJ Turnpike. "A Beautiful Mind" was a multiple Academy Award winner.

After years during which he’d dropped out of formal academia, Nash won the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics. He also became known as a genius tormented by schizophrenia, a mathematician who solved problems that had vexed scholars for centuries but who had paranoid delusions and once declared himself Emperor of Antarctica. Nash eventually recovered from his devastating illness, defying a common misconception about schizophrenia and providing the inspiration for Ron Howard’s 2002 Oscar-winning film “A Beautiful Mind,” starring Russell Crowe.

“Nash’s insight into the dynamics of human rivalry -- his theory of rational conflict and cooperation -- was to become one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century,” his biographer Sylvia Nasar wrote in her 1999 book “A Beautiful Mind.”

Nash transformed economics, Nasar wrote, just as “Mendel’s ideas of genetic transmission, Darwin’s model of natural selection, and Newton’s celestial mechanics reshaped biology and physics in their day.”

Celebration of Oscar Romero beatification

I posted here Archbishop Romero Beatification tomorrow and here Beatification: "In search of Romero and his theology"   about Romero.

Another nice video from El Salvador.

 

An app that blocks all mention of the Kardashians

I'm not sure if this is real or a joke. But if it's real - they'll make a lot of money!

Beatification: "In search of Romero and his theology"

A short video. Yesterday I posted this Archbishop Romero Beatification tomorrow , which has a brief video about him.

 

Exercise: helps your brain; makes you smarter

I need the help. And almost any amount of exercise helps, and at any age. I didn't know that stress actually makes your brain smaller.

 

Archbishop Romero Beatification tomorrow

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980)[3] was a bishop of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He became the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. He spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture.[4] His spiritual life drew much from the spirituality of Opus Dei, and in later stages of his life he was strongly imbued with the progressive liberation theology movement in Latin America.[5][6] In 1980, at the Church of the Divine Providence, Romero was assassinated while offering Mass.

Tim graduated today

More to follow on this, but I gave him his diploma (since i was also a graduate of Stepinac, and as such was invited to give Tim his diploma - as were many other relatives of grads) and then snapped a quick selfie of the two of us. Much to the amusement of the large - well over 1,000 - crowd. Had to be quick since I didn't want to slow up the proceedings.

Well, great picture of Tim - I always look pale next to him.

Tim: County champion in javelin; 3rd in shot put.

This past Sunday, at the Westchester championships. Great!

Westchester County Track & Field Championships results

The week before he won the CHSAA (Catholic league) Sectional championship (Westchester, the Bronx and Queens) in the javelin, He's still ranked #4 in the javelin in NY State.

Couldn't get any decent pictures or video of the javelin, but here's a shot put picture (frozen off a video) and below a quick video of his last throw - 46'6" - that got him third place.

He'd gone over 48' earlier, but hit the line for a foul.

 

Prediction (not mine): buy gold, hold cash

So we'll see in September if he - and Bank of America - are right. I doubt it.

 

Dean Potter the rock climbing, slackline walking, base jumper

Who died along with another fellow, base jumping in Yosemite on Sunday, the 16th.

Last night Brigid and I watched the two hour Valley Uprising documentary on the Discovery Channel. We'd taped it on April 24th. It's about the evolution of rock climbing and other extreme sports in Yosemite. And Dean Potter was heavily featured in the last third of the show.  

Here's the LA Times article on Potter and the other base jumper who was killed.

Potter had jumped from the same point at least 20 times, and Hunt may have too, Gauthier said. Potter and Hunt jumped around nightfall from Taft Point, an overlook about 3,000 feet above Yosemite Valley, said park spokesman Scott Gediman. They were wearing wingsuits, Gauthier said.  Gauthier said he was told that neither of their parachutes deployed. The pair’s spotter, a woman, was at Taft Point during the jump but has asked not to be named. The spotter photographed the jump, which Gauthier said occurred around 7:30 p.m. Gauthier said the spotter heard what she thought sounded like parachutes opening or an impact sound. She couldn’t see them crash, and called out to them.

Potter has been featured over the years in numerous mainstream publications, including this in the NY Times.

 

"I Love Lucy" reruns crush "Mad Men" finale

Even though I'm originally from Ossining (moved there when I was five) I've never watched Mad Men.

Lucy rules!

“Lucy” had 6.4 million total viewers. That’s almost twice the very high “Mad Men” score of 3.3 million viewers on Sunday. That’s shows with scripts. The Billboard Music Awards had 11 million, and “60 Minutes” had 9 million

Health Update

Glad I hardly ever do these updates anymore - especially since this blog was originally all about my adventure with lymphoma and chemotherapy.

Anyway I had a two-fer on Friday; saw my internist - a woman who'd taken over for the great Dr. Sheehy when he retired two plus years ago - as well as my lymphoma guru Dr. Zelenetz.

Report was 99% good. The 1% was an elevated LDH enzyme which could mean a number of things and I'll have another blood test this Friday. Dr. Z. thinks it's an "artifact" and not important; but going to re-do the test anyway.

A good thing was my weight - 161 lbs. I was afraid I'd gained weight, but I haven't. So I spent the weekend gorging on chocolate. Why waste calories on anything else?

How to live middle class on 5K a year in NY City

An interesting article in the Guardian (UK).

Marie is a French woman living in Brooklyn who has no job, no visa, and lives in a three-story house for free. Her secret: living off the waste of others.

Drifting from the American philosophy of incessant consumption, some have adapted to a system of interdependence and sharing – and eating for free is just the first step.

Marie lives a New York middle-class life spending less than $5,000 a year. Kalish, who travels more, needs $10,000. They work, eat, have a home, but there’s no rent bill or grocery shopping. No regular salary, even. Money isn’t their currency.

Marie is a petite, black-haired French woman who looks just like the conventional fortysomething Brooklynite. But she has no job, no visa, and lives in a three-story house for free. Living in the US also comes with an additional bit of daring: she’s an illegal immigrant. For privacy reasons, she asked to be identified with her first name only.

She's bought a one way ticket and will head back to France sometime soon - or so she says.

Rugby: USA wins first time - 7's World Series tournament

The last one of the World Series schedule in London. Amazing stuff as they won the quarterfinals, semis, and finals by big margins!

Quarterfinals v. Canada

Semifinal against England (and they were playing in their own stadium at Twickenham, having just knocked off New Zealand)

And the finals against Australia (who'd beaten overall World Series champion Fiji)

HE men and HOT women

At the Caldwell College (NJ) Scholarship Fundraiser; we were invited by Bill Connolly. Five couples - you'll have to figure our who's with who. ...

L to R, back row Tom, Francis, Bill, sitting Tom & John

L to R, Rose, Melinda, Brigid, Mary Jo, Lisa

 

Rugby: London 7's & USA doing well

Day one and US won all three of their matches - into the quarterfinals.

 

Exercise & health "in old age" (70's & 80's)

Another large study - showing the benefits of even a small amount of exercise. An article from The Guardian (UK).

Elderly men who do 30 minutes of physical activity six days a week are likely to live longer than their couch-potato counterparts, researchers said Friday. For men in this age group, just a small amount of regular exercise – regardless of intensity – is as beneficial as giving up smoking, they said.

The researchers were struck by the impact of regular physical exercise during the 2000-2011 period, when the volunteers were aged in their seventies or eighties.

“A mortality reduction of 40% was associated with a moderate use of time (30 minutes, six days a week) irrespective of whether the activity was light or vigorous,” their study said.

Among those who exercised vigorously – defined as hard training several times a week – the lifespan was as much as five years longer than among those who were sedentary.

******

Volunteers who took part in the study after the relaunch in 2000 were the healthiest survivors of the original batch, which potentially skews some of the data.

But even when this is taken into account, the benefits of regular exercise were clear, the authors said.

 

"Indian don't rob bank"

A little amusement.

 

Eric Clapton tribute to B. B. King

CNN: Interview with the parents of marine who died in Nepal

The pilot of the helicopter - Captain Chris Norgren - that went down with six marines and two Nepalese on board.

Two strong parents, and a nice interview by Anderson Cooper, who always does a good job with these kinds of interviews. Great thoughts.

 

Two Palestinian nuns being canonized

A sign of hope.

 

For dog lovers - 1 minute vid - 800K views in one week.

I think from Australia. Brigid will love this ...

 

Sean Duffy (R-WI) powerful pro-life comments

In the floor debate in the House to ban abortions after 20 weeks. It passed in the House, with 4 Republicans voting against it and only 4 Democrats voting in favor (so... 180 Dems voted in favor of late term abortion/infanticide). The Bill will go to the Senate, where it's likely to be passed, and then vetoed by the President.

 

Cable news ratings

MSNBC is disappearing.

Not only did The Ed Show hit a new low of 30K viewers in the 25-54 demo on Wednesday, but MSNBC had its lowest total day ratings in close to 10 years with 49K average viewers in the demo over the course of the day.

If you hit the link there are some interesting charts comparing FOX news viewership with CNN. O'Reilly gets more viewers when his show is repeated at 11pm than any CNN show.

And here's  link showing all the numbers on one page Cable News Ratings

CNN: Surviving a train weck

Rugby: Glasgow 7's

This is day 2, the final eight teams, including the USA.

 

Apropos of recent polling: "Is Christianity Dying"

Thanks to Ed for pointing this out to me.

A short essay by Russell Moore, an important educator and theologian in the Southern Baptist Convention. The essay reminds me of the comment by the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner - prominent during and after Vatican II - that the concern is not atheists, but rather Christians who live their lives as practical atheists.

Christianity is dying. At least, that’s what major newspapers are telling us today, culling research from a new Pew Center study on what almost all sociologists are observing these days—the number of Americans who identify as Christians has reached an all-time low, and is falling. I think this is perhaps bad news for America, but it is good news for the church.

Secularization in America means that we have fewer incognito atheists. Those who don’t believe can say so—and still find spouses, get jobs, volunteer with the PTA, and even run for office. This is good news because the kind of “Christianity” that is a means to an end—even if that end is “traditional family values”—is what J. Gresham Machen rightly called “liberalism,” and it is an entirely different religion from the apostolic faith handed down by Jesus Christ.

Now, what some will say is that the decline in self-identified Christians is a sign that the church should jettison its more unpopular teachings. And in our day, these teachings are almost always those dealing with pelvic autonomy. First of all, even if this were the key to success, we couldn’t—and wouldn’t—do it. Christianity isn’t a political party, dependent on crafting ideologies to suit the masses. We received this gospel (Gal. 1:11-12); we didn’t invent it. But, that said, such is not the means to “success”—even the way the sociologists define it.

The Pew report holds that mainline denominations—those who have made their peace with the Sexual Revolution—continue to report heavy losses, while evangelical churches remain remarkably steady—even against some heavy headwinds coming from the other direction. Why?

We learned this answer 100 years ago, and it reminds us of what we learned 2,000 years ago. Two or three generations ago, Christians who held to the Virgin birth of Christ were warned that their children would flee the faith unless the parents redefined Christianity. “If you want to win the next generation,” they were told, “you have to make Christianity relevant, and that means dispending with miracles in favor of modern science.” The churches that followed that path aren’t just dying; they are dead, sustained by endowments and dwindling gatherings of nostalgic senior adults with a smattering of community organizers here and there.

People who don’t want Christianity, don’t want almost-Christianity. Almost-Christianity looks in the mainline like something from Nelson Rockefeller to Che Guevara at prayer. Almost Christianity, in the Bible Belt, looks like a God-and-Country civil religion that prizes cultural conservatism more than theological fidelity. Either way, a Christianity that reflects its culture, whether that culture is Smith College or NASCAR, only lasts as long as it is useful to its host. That’s because it’s, at root, idolatry, and people turn from their idols when they stop sending rain.

Christianity isn’t normal anymore, and that’s good news. The Book of Acts, like the Gospels before it, shows us that the Christianity thrives when it is, as Kierkegaard put it, a sign of contradiction. Only a strange gospel can differentiate itself from the worlds we construct. But the strange, freakish, foolish old gospel is what God uses to save people and to resurrect churches (1 Cor. 1:20-22).

We do not have more atheists in America. We have more honest atheists in America. Again, that’s good news. The gospel comes to sinners, not to the righteous. It is easier to speak a gospel to the lost than it is to speak a gospel to the kind-of-saved. And what those honest atheists grapple with, is what every sinner grapples with, burdened consciences that point to judgment. Our calling is to bear witness.

******

The future of Christianity is bright. I don’t know that from surveys and polls, but from a word Someone spoke one day back at Caesarea Philippi. The gates of hell haven’t gotten any stronger, and the Light that drives out the darkness is enough to counter every rival gospel, even those gospels that describe themselves as “none.”

HSBC: All the (economic) things that can go wrong

Pretty good short article. World economy still on a tightrope.

In a note to clients Wednesday, he warns: "The world economy is like an ocean liner without lifeboats. If another recession hits, it could be a truly titanic struggle for policymakers."

Here's King (emphasis added):

Whereas previous recoveries have enabled monetary and fiscal policymakers to replenish their ammunition, this recovery — both in the US and elsewhere — has been distinguished by a persistent munitions shortage. This is a major problem. In all recessions since the 1970s, the US Fed funds rate has fallen by a minimum of 5 percentage points. That kind of traditional stimulus is now completely ruled out.

He's right. Five more paragraphs if you hit the link.

King notes that this far into the recovery, there's a lack of "traditional policy ammunition." For instance, Treasury yields have not risen, the budget deficit is not falling, and welfare payments are still on the rise.

 

NY Times surrenders; partners with Facebook

in New York Magazine -

The New York Times–Facebook Deal Is Here

As much as anything, the Facebook deal is a concession by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. that the paper's app strategy failed to produce the turnaround the company hoped for. Now the Times is throwing its fate into Facebook's hands. "This is really about the crown jewels," a senior media executive familiar with the deal told me. "The stakes are that high."